Recent report say watching too much TV is bad for your kids - what do you think?

i regularly watch tv, well i am not a child but when i am at home alone the sound of the tv is something i need. when i was a chil my parents let me watch tv just two hours after school and about other two before going to sleep. i think a kid should grow watching tv and playing outside with friends but games such as playstation and xbox have changed a kid's gamelife... watching tv can also damage eyes... so, better running outside playing football!

I think its right ,watch too much tv is bad for our eyes and we always sit for a long time ~it is not good for our body~~~~

i think one or two hours a day is enough! they must play outside or do games or other stuff! if they watch tv all day they get lazy and fat! but it is the parents to blame, most of the time they let the kids watch tv and doing their own stuff. my daughter watch tv in the morning, after that we go to school, or shopping, or playing outside.

definately it is not good to watch TV more and more for kids as well as adults. my five year cousin addicted to it and he never left till he slept. we are in a fix how to remove his bad habits. in the meantime, he got spactacle.

Yes, I also agree to this fact that watching TV too much is bad for children. It become a bad habit and may be an addiction in future if not controlled, which affects not only the studies but is harmful for health too. It affects adversely to the brain, eyes and creative thinking. parents must be careful about it, and I am always agaist having a personal TV sets inside the child's bed room, since, it is not possible all the time to take care of the programs they see, son, to avoid watching abusive contents it is better to not install a TV set there. let us see, what others say?

We have a single television in our home. In the living room. We don't have any tv at all because we don't have cable, and right now we don't see the need for it. I used to have the television on in the day just for background noise and now, I wondered why I ever needed it. If we watch anything, we sit down together and watch a DVD. We have a huge collection of DVD's and so long as the kids have done their homework and eaten their dinner, they do get to pick a DVD to watch. I 'm lucky right now in that my kids are still young enough that they want to watch things like Disney movies so it's not a case of censoring what they watch, so much as how much of it they watch. i know as they get older they might ask about having television, and chances are, we might already have it by then, but I do believe in filtering what they watch and what they don't. I'll have to be ever more vigilant the older they get.

Thanks for this post,it is lesson for me..i have 9 month old son and atleast i know now how to descipline my son.watching tv must be with limitation.i see...

i don't think that to much TV is going to hurt a child, as long as the child still gets out and does stuff with friends instead of letting it take his or her life over... also, how recent is this report? people have been saying that for years

it also depends on the type of program your child is watching and as long that your child is not watching too much of it, it won't do harm. my son watch a lot of educational shows but i still limit his watching to 1 to hours. most of the time he begs for more but my husband and i insist that he watch only on the hour we give him. my son is so amazing. by 18 months he could count from 1 to 10 and he is now 25 months and could recognize some colors and letters from the alphabet plus he could count up to 20 now and talks in 2 different language... but still he is an active child who likes to play a lot and i let him play all day whenever he likes to.

It is about time that they came out with a report like this, in all hoesty, it is apparent that it is bad for everyone, not just children. I don't think that children should have tv's in their rooms, and nor should they be allowed to watch a lot of tv, because it effects them negatively in so many ways. Also, I do believe that what children watch should be monitored, because there are so many things out there, that are just unacceptable. Furthermore, when I was a child, even though we were allowed to watch tv, I hardly ever did, except for the weekend cartoons and some of the disney channel. Other than that, I was mostly outside, being active and having fun.

I am, perhaps, one of the few people these days without a tele all the best urban

I'm not so sure about the early puberty thing being caused by tv..I think it's more like the steroids used in everything we eat that causes that. I love tv always have- but I was taught at an early age to read so I enjoy reading as well, recently i have been watching a lot of tv and gaining weight- i believe that is part of the problem- kids who watch a lot of tv and sit and play computer games aren't getting enough exercise. This very thing happened to my nephew, and since he has gotten a job and is not sitting around so much- he has lost 20 lbs. It also can be a social issue, they spend so much time with tv/computer that they lack the social skills they need to interact in the world.

I always felt that too much t.v would stunt a child's creativity of imagination so when my older children were younger they did not watch much t.v if any at all but over the years as I was babysitting , I noticed that parents that monitored what their children watched had a very good imagination and much better then my children did when they were that age , so when I had my baby girls I decided to allow them to watch t.v as often as they wanted provided it was a learning show that would teach them something useful . Today my three year old is amazinly smart for her age and has a wonderful imagination . People are amazed when they see her as they always think she is already in school and yet she still has a couple of years left to go . So I encourage her behaviour as I know she is picking up a lot from what she is watching on t.v. Her favorite show is Dora the Explorer and that show teaches them so much everyday and because she will watch the same thing over and over she is picking up on everything . She can already spell her name , knows all her alphabet and recognizes most of her letters , knows all her number and colors in english , french and spanish . She recongizes most of her numbers by sight , she also knows all her shapes and is now learning how to add and subtract and I must say she amazes me on a daily basis with her vocabulary and what she can say it the appropiate way . She uses words like complicated and patient and just big words for her age . So in my opinion I feel that it has helped her a great deal but like I said we closely monitor what she watches and she knows if something comes on t.v that I don't approve of her watching she is quick to come tell me to get it off the t.v .

Too much of anything is not good I think. My kids watch a lot of tv though especially the 2 year old. I just make sure she's far away from the tv so her eyes don't go bad. I think it's good for her though, she's learning alot.

There is no need of study like this as we should understand by ourself that watching too much tv is bad not only for kids but also for their parents. In todays time every tv channel is providing unwanted stuffs just for sheap publicity. At this time we should be active and put band on this type of activities. Whats ur opinion????????

5 hours of tv a day?? Oh my-- thats way too much! My daughter is allowed to watch about 1 hour a day-- at night. During the day we are outside playing when she isn't in school.. I agree if a child sits and watches tv all day they aren't getting exercise which would lead to overweight kids. Kids should be stimulated in other ways- Play a game with them-- read books with them.. run around! I hardly ever watched tv as a kid.. I watch more now as an adult but usually after she goes to bed. My daughter has a tv in her playroom... Not her bedroom. I know what she watches.. Mostly Disney and Nick Jr.

I agree that too much tv for kids isn't at all good for their growing minds. I feel like most tv programs on these days aren't appropriate for younger kids especially. My problem is that the television is teaching them values that I don't necessarily believe in. Society sucks these days, as far as values and principles go... that's my opinion.

I too have come across many articles on the ill-effects of tv viewing on kids. Not only do we have to worry about the wrong habits and violence they get exposed to, but we aksi have to worry about over stimulation caused by the visual images flickering on the screen too quickly. I love watching tv, that is why my son has also developed a love for it. But we are not addicted to tv. My son can survive without it. I believe it is too much when the tv is turned on the whole day or most of the day and that all our activities are done with the tv on. Another gauge would be if a child is glued to the tv set and can't live without it (e.g. can't eat without tv, can't fall asleep without the sound of the tv...) We have a tv in all our rooms, but I make sure that there are pre-set hours that the tv has to be off. For example, he can watch for 2 hours in the am and 2 hours in the pm. I watch my shows at noon and in the evening. The tv must be off during meal times and right before bedtime.

yes.The report is right.No one can deny it.

I think it all depends on how you're using the tv. Is it a babysitter for your children so that you can do other things while they are preoccupied or is it an education tool that you can enjoy with them. It's the latter for me and I can say that my child has learned a lot from the things we've let her watch.